How Weill Cornell Medicine Supports Mission Critical Data Centers

When you are among the top-ranked clinical and medical research centers in the United States, your mission is critical and so are your data centers. You need to rely on the latest technology for consistent uptime and to protect and process critical data. That’s why Leonard Francis, Associate Director of IT for Weill Cornell Medical College turned to the InfraStruxure solution, together with StruxureWare software by Schneider Electric to plan for data center capacity and efficiently manage multiple sites.

Leonard was part of a panel session I moderated at this year’s Datacenter Dynamics Converged enterprise conference in New York City. We discussed his organization’s ongoing work with Schneider Electric and, in particular, how InfraStruxure — an integrated data center solution — coupled with infrastructure management software (DCIM) StruxtureWare, has enabled data center consolidation and extended manageability.

Weill Cornell Medicine, a nearly 120-year-old institution, offers degrees in medicine and PhD programs in biomedical research and education at the Graduate School of Medical Sciences. In partnership with Sloan-Kettering Institute and The Rockefeller University, Weill Cornell Medicine has also established a joint MD-PhD program.

The organization’s research focuses on the sciences underlying clinical medicine and covers the study, treatment and prevention of human diseases. According to its website, “Weill Cornell is the birthplace of many medical advances — including the development of the Pap test for cervical cancer, the synthesis of penicillin, the first successful embryo-biopsy pregnancy and birth in the U.S., the first clinical trial of gene therapy for Parkinson’s disease, and most recently, the world’s first successful use of deep brain stimulation to treat a minimally conscious brain- injured patient.”

Mission Critical Data Centers

With a “triple mission” of education, research and patient care, it’s mission critical for Weill Cornell Medicine to have the best infrastructure and highest-performing data centers. To improve operations, optimize management and save money, the institution consolidated an older data center into a new one.

“By moving to the InfraStuxure product we were able to leverage newer technologies for cooling and our cost of ownership went down,” said Leonard. “The time it takes to build a data center was also reduced. We were able to turn it around in just a couple of months.”

Weill Cornell Medicine integrated remaining sites with StruxureWare software and relies on the tool for capacity planning — which is as important as power and cooling, according to Leonard. “StruxureWare is going to give us the ability to manage our space better. It provides a view into an area where we didn’t have one before,” he said.

Looking ahead, Weill Cornell Medicine also plans to integrate its IT workflow and ticket management systems into StruxureWare. As multiple departments utilize this system, the integration will result in a more holistic view of the entire environment.

“We continue to look at new ways that we can leverage the APC by Schneider [Electric] products,” said Leonard. “We are looking to see how we can extend our footprint and continue to manage and control into extended spaces and they are working closely with us on this.”